


And I Won't Speak But What Is True

by commoncomitatus



Series: XIX [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 20:59:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2825942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commoncomitatus/pseuds/commoncomitatus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag for "City Of Heroes". Between gun-toting vigilantes and erstwhile-AWOL ex-boyfriends, it's not exactly the best night Laurel's ever had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I Won't Speak But What Is True

—

It shouldn’t surprise her nearly as much as it does that Oliver rolls back into town on the very same day she’s almost killed.

The last couple of weeks have been crazy, and not just on a personal level. The ‘new job, no sleep’ situation that has become Laurel’s personal day-to-day gauntlet is one thing, but the city itself is bleeding again, and that’s a little more important than the bruise-coloured marks under her eyes. It’s been a nightmare for everyone, and most of all in the one place that really deserves to catch a break. The Glades, never the kind of place to stay quiet for too long, is taking beating after beating, and if Laurel had any room left inside for compassion her heart would be bleeding itself dry for all the innocents stuck out there.

Honestly, she supposes it was too much to hope for, too much to expect that things might actually settle down after the earthquake. She’s stupid for indulging the thought, stupid for her idealism… but then, didn’t Moira Queen say just a few weeks ago that she’s always been too much of an optimist? Apparently that’s a whole lot closer to the truth than Laurel would care to admit, because even though she should know better by now, it still stops the breath in her lungs every time a fresh story hits the news.

The Hood, the one she hates so much, has kept his head down since the quake. Not that that’s done much good; even Laurel can’t deny that there’s a hole in the justice system without him around, and others have swarmed in waves to try and fill it up. It’s nothing short of chaos, a flood of violence and desperation from the very people the original claimed to protect, the wounded and the angry, and the rest of Starling has watched in wordless horror the rise of a new kind of vigilantism, of bitter and feral creatures putting his name on their deeds, claiming his title for themselves, holding people at gunpoint in the name of justice. Violence for the sake of violence, words turned bloody by action, voices turned ragged with hate.

They’re just like him, Laurel thinks. The only difference is, his weapon doesn’t shoot bullets.

In a twisted sort of way, she can’t help thinking that it’s probably for the best. For herself, at least, the shift in atmosphere has been admittedly kind of comfortable; she’s still seething from the earthquake, from CNRI, from Tommy and the moment the vigilante let him die. She’s still haunted by the memory, the moment branded against her heart, a split-second where everything changed. She can still see it, as clearly as if it’s happening all over again, a face half-hidden by the shadows and a voice she almost recognises, the silhouette of broad hooded shoulders, a shrug as he turns around and runs away; she’s still tortured by that night, by the moment when a hero became a villain, when the so-called saviour refused to save a life, when idealised romance turned to hatred and bitterness. She’s still haunted, still tortured, and it’s comforting that the rest of the city is finally starting to feel the same way, finally starting to replace their air-headed worship with fresh-flowing resentment.

She thinks about Tommy, about the hole in the ground where CNRI used to be. She thinks about undertakings and explosions, the parts of the Glades that don’t exist any more, remembers the smell of smoke and the taste of flame, the trickle of sweat between her shoulder-blades. She remembers being kidnapped, being hunted, being used by her own father for some petty little vendetta against a man she herself tried to defend, the same man she hates so much now. How things change, and not always for the better.

There’s so much to remember, so much to think about, so much pain that wasn’t there before. It’s only been a year since Ollie came back, a year since the worst thing she could have imagined unravelled and split itself apart, and how could she have known then that it was just making way for worse things to pour in and fill up all that space? There’s been so much pain lately, so much damage and death and destruction, and she can’t help thinking that maybe it all hurt just a little less when all she had to think about was her boyfriend and her sister and the wreck of a billionaire’s boat.

Starling is a dangerous place; that’s always been true. But it sure felt safer before people started trying to save it.

—

All things considered, the mayor’s little fundraiser is probably about as stupid as it is calculated.

In theory, at least, it makes perfect sense. It’s a great strategic move, anyhow, a perfect way for the mayor to show sympathy for the suffering of the Glades without having to get his own hands dirty, ask the people to empty their pockets so he doesn’t have to show off what’s inside his own, and it pretty much guarantees another term in office if it all goes off without a hitch. From her slightly cynical ADA’s viewpoint, Laurel can’t deny that the politics of the thing are painstakingly well thought out. It’s nothing short of genius, really, except for the one fatal flaw.

The thing is, the wealthy and the prestigious aren’t exactly popular in Starling right now. The kind of people who fill a party like this, who rub shoulders and congratulate each other for donating fifty bucks while earning another five thousand in back-handers. They’re the people who should be laying low, who should be keeping their heads down. It’s been that way since long before the Hood got his arrows into their jugulars, and it’s only gotten worse since the copycats starting using fat wallets as target practice.

Put simply, this little shindig is living breathing ‘kick me’ sign. There’s too many of them here, too many wallets and too many braggarts waving them around; there’s too many targets here for the city’s crime element to turn a blind eye. That’s just common sense, and even a lowly lawyer like Laurel knows that. Fact is, by throwing a high-profile function like this, no matter its good intentions, the mayor’s practically painting a giant bullseye on the the roof of the building and sending up a signal flare.

But then, that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? Laurel’s still too far down the ladder to be stung by the same blindness that others in the field are; even Adam Donner wears his smug self-satisfaction like a badge most days, and he’s about as down-to-earth as a district attorney can get. It’s a sad fact, though, that the people most in danger are the ones least likely to realise it, and if there’s one thing that Laurel’s learned since she started working under Adam, under Kate Spencer, under the people who get invited to parties like this, it’s that the higher someone climbs on that precious political ladder, the more they think they’re invincible.

Honestly, Laurel can’t help thinking there’s something almost a little insidious about the mayor, or at least the way he holds himself, something that says _‘you can’t touch me; nobody can’_. It sets Laurel’s nerves on edge, which is all the more unpleasant given the fact that they were already tuned more than a little sharp before she even arrived.

It’s a work thing, of course. Everything she does nowadays is some kind of work thing. Adam invited her, a hand on her shoulder and that knowing grin on his face as he all but dragged her away from her desk. _“You need a change of scenery,”_ he said, _“and I need a plus-one.”_ Laurel hated that she couldn’t argue, hated that she couldn’t tell him to back off, hated that she couldn’t refuse the invitation. She’s a lawyer, not a secretary, but apparently things aren’t so different for women in the workplace no matter what that workplace looks like; all those hours she clocked at CNRI don’t amount to much when she’s the newest, youngest, greenest member of Spencer’s team.

So here she is. Standing in front of the mirror for the thousandth time since the earthquake, staring at a face that belongs to her but doesn’t look at all familiar.

The mirror’s not familiar either this time. It’s the mayor’s, like everything else in this over-decorated place, and there’s a part of her that can’t help resenting the way it makes her look. She wears the dress well, but it gives her the air of something she’s not, something delicate and fragile, something that catches the light and makes people notice. She’s not that thing, doesn’t want to be that thing, and when she checks her make-up and studies the lines of her practiced smile she lets herself pretend that it’s all the mirror’s doing.

She thinks of Verdant, of impressionable young Thea, of Moira rotting away in her cell, of how close she used to be with them both, and how much it hurts to try and be that close again. She thinks of Ollie, feels the bitterness seep in under the skin before she even has a chance to wonder where he is. She thinks of the Glades, or what’s left of it, the gaping hole where CNRI used to be. She thinks of Tommy in his coffin, at peace in death like he never got the chance to be when he was alive, of all the people left to suffer through surviving because his father didn’t have the mercy to kill them all too. She thinks of how uneasy she feels in that garish red dress, wishes she’d thought to wear something more appropriate.

She’s more comfortable in black these days, anyway.

She stays there a little longer than she probably should, staring at her own face in someone else’s mirror, enjoying the silence of the garish ladies’ restroom, the peace and quiet. These people aren’t her people; they’re Oliver’s people, Tommy’s people, the kind of people who make the world worse by claiming they’re making it better, and she’s not the same naive young woman who thought a trip to Aspen with a Queen and a Merlyn was the highest thing for a young woman to strive for. She grew up, and she can’t help thinking it’s about time the mayor and his little rich friends started doing the same.

When she finally steps out of the restroom, double-checking that her polite _‘delighted to be here’_ face is neatly in place, it’s about two seconds before she’s accosted. Not by Adam, thankfully, or any of the big-names he’s trying to brown-nose, but by a careless-looking waiter with a tray of entrées in one hand and a tray of champagne flutes in the other. There’s about a thousand common-sense reasons to ignore the liquor entirely and go straight for the food, but of course if common sense was in charge tonight she would’ve faked the flu.

The champagne is impossibly bad, but she knocks it back anyway, then takes another just for something to do with her hands. She’s feeling awkward already, she thinks, and chugging cheap champagne is at least slightly more socially acceptable than knuckle-cracking.

It holds her over for a little while, anyway, but of course the problem with feeling awkward is that it brings out the worst kind of nervous habit. Knuckle-cracking is probably the preferable option to drinking the bar dry, but by the time that thought crosses her mind Laurel is past the point of caring.

Her hands are empty again when she finds her way back to Adam and the mayor, but her head is quite the opposite, and the pleasant buzz goes some way in dulling the agony of so much posturing. It keeps her from speaking her mind, at least, and when she’s got her new boss on one side and the city’s leading authority on the other, that counts for a whole lot.

By the time the mayor saunters off to give his speech, the fuzzy-headed haze is about the only thing keeping her sane, and when all hell breaks loose about eight seconds later, it’s about the only thing keeping her conscious.

Bullets carve through the air, through the mayor, through pretty much anything that crosses their path, as bullets have a tendency to do; it’s chaos, but a few too many nervous glasses of bad champagne are doing a damn good job of dulling the terror that Laurel knows she should be feeling. For the time being, at least, all she can think of is that it’s a good job she drank them all so fast, because if she hadn’t she’d probably be choking on them right about now.

She’d probably be doing other things as well. Cowering under a table, hiding behind Adam, playing it safe. Laurel isn’t exactly the cowering type, even when she should be, but if there’s one thing her father has always tried to drill into her head, it’s that courage comes with a short life expectancy. If she was thinking a little more clearly, she’d be hearing his voice in her head right now, telling her to be careful, to keep her head down, to survive and see another day. She’d be thinking of him, not of Tommy, not of his courage and how it killed him. She’d be thinking of things that would make her careful, not things that make her want to be stupid.

They come at her, the vigilantes. More accurately, they come at Adam; Laurel isn’t important enough to worry about, she figures, but she’s not about to start rallying for equality here and now. Honestly, she should be taking it as her cue to run away, to swallow down the courage that Dad always said would be her undoing, to get the hell out of there before that godawful decor is the last thing she sees. She should be doing a lot of things, but instead, she’s giving in to reflex. Well, reflex and the hum of godawful champagne in her veins, and maybe a few other things too, because she it’s sure as hell not sanity in the driving seat now, and it’s sure as hell not her dad’s influence that compels her to lunge forward and punch the guy in the face.

It’s probably a thousand different things, a whole spectrum of stupidity, or maybe just the right feeling at the right moment. Whatever the hell it is, though, it feels good, and Laurel finds herself relishing the throb of pain in her knuckles, the flurry of black over red as the vigilante bastard loses his balance — equal parts pain and surprise, she supposes; who’d’ve thought a lady in a heels could pack that kind of a punch? — and tumbles down the stairs.

Less than a second later, she’s staring down the barrel of a gun.

 _Vigilantes,_ she thinks in the moment or two before the terror catches up and drowns what’s left the courage. _Nothing but trouble every time._

—

As usual, the cops are late.

By the time they show up, the Hoods are already gone. There’s a hell of a mess in their wake, though, broken glass and broken bodies, blood and the echo of screams. For her part, Laurel still can’t seem to catch her breath, can’t seem to see straight, and it has nothing to do with the adrenaline or the buzz of cheap champagne. The fear fell away when the gun did, but it’s left behind a gnawing numbness that she can’t seem to shake, an uncomfortable feeling that settles in the pit of her stomach and makes her head spin, and it’s all she can do to keep from trying to find another glass or six of wine — of anything — to wash it away.

Her dad’s worried, of course, but he makes a conscious effort to be a cop. It’s the last thing his boss wants, Laurel can tell, not least of all because he shouldn’t be here in the first place, but Dad’s nothing if not stubborn, and it helps his daughter to remember that she can be stubborn too. Watching the way he sets his jaw, the way he talks shop, talks IDs and witnesses instead of holding her close and whispering her name like some kind of wounded bird… it helps her to be professional too, to be a lawyer instead of an innocent, a witness instead of a victim. It helps her to to straighten her shoulders, to talk to him like he talks to her, to keep them both grounded in what they need to do instead of what they want to be. It’s hard to think straight, to give helpful answers, to do much of anything when all she can see when she closes her eyes is the barrel of a gun, but he grounds her just like he always does when he’s in uniform.

She’s missed this, she realises, and instantly hates herself. It’s the last thing he wanted out of his life, the demotion, but there’s a part of her that can’t help being selfishly happy. She’s missed seeing him like this, getting his hands dirty instead of standing in the background while the other guys do it. She’s missed having him out there on the streets, pounding the ground, a beat cop instead of a detective. She knows he doesn’t feel the same way, knows that he worked his ass off to get out of there, to get that promotion and make a name for himself doing what he loves; she feels terrible that she could take something positive from something that’s made him so miserable, but God help her, she does anyway. She’s missed the sight of him in action like this, the big tough cop that made his daughters so proud.

In hindsight, it’s probably pretty good timing that Oliver chooses that moment to walk back into her life.

Honestly, things can’t get much lower; thinking about how great it is that her dad’s so miserable is about as far as she’s willing to fall for one night, and if there’s one thing she can always trust Ollie to do, it’s make her feel a little less ashamed of her own shortcomings. Besides, the shock of seeing him again is softened more than a little by what she’s just been through. She’s already shell-shocked, already in a state of numb disbelief; she’s already in a vulnerable place, to put it plainly, and when she catches Ollie’s eye across the room, she that finds she’s too busy reeling to feel any of the rage, any of the betrayal or frustration that she felt before he left, that she’s been feeling ever since Tommy’s death. She doesn’t feel much of anything, and when he leans in and suggests they take a walk, the nod and the smile come automatically. It’s like her skin isn’t her own, like her reactions are coming from some outside place, and as she follows him out of the demolished foyer, her eyes are locked on her own shoes.

So they walk, together and alone. Laurel keeps expecting the anger to resurface, keeps waiting for the sound of his voice to bring back all those feelings she’s been trying to hide, the misplaced hatred, the violence that keeps lashing out in all the wrong places, keeps waiting for his presence to trigger all those dark thoughts she’s been burying under free booze and too much work. When she looks up from her shoes, she expects the sight of his face to hurt, the sparkle in his eyes to sting and cut, but they don’t. Maybe that’s just a convenient bi-product of the near-death experience thing; it’s hard to feel angry when you’re just glad to be alive, she supposes, and wonders if that’s how Tommy felt in the moments before he choked on his last breath.

“Thea’s doing well,” she hears her own voice say, distant and preternaturally quiet against the roar of blood in her ears.

Ollie blinks, frowns; he didn’t ask, she realises belatedly, and supposes she should feel embarrassed. That feeling doesn’t come either, though, and she wonders if it’s the strange numbness or the fact that it’s Ollie, that it’s the two of them. They’ve never really been the kind of couple who were comfortable with protracted silences, and the occasional unexpected outburst has always been better than the alternative. Silence makes them think, makes _her_ think, and thinking is never a good thing when Ollie’s around.

Fact is, she needed to say something. She can feel the ghost of their relationship hanging over the small-talk he’s desperately trying to make, and the very thought terrifies her almost as much as the Hoods and their gun-barrels. She’s been dreading this ever since he left, the part where she tells him there isn’t anything between them, that it’s over, that they’re through and they have to stay that way. He’s not the kind of guy who’s likely to get his heart broken by a confession like that — honestly, playboy that he is, he’ll probably be more relieved than hurt — but there’s still a finality to hearing it said out loud, an end to something that’s been shadowing her for half her life, and despite the part of her that wants to keep the break clean, the nostalgist in her wants to put it off for as long as she can.

“I know.”

His smile is almost reverent, and Laurel understands the sentiment completely. Knowing what she does about how well Thea has thrived in his absence, how completely she’s adapted to a painful and unpleasant situation, how thoroughly she’s grown up, grown into something that everyone who knows her can’t help but be proud of, she can’t imagine how Oliver must feel, what it must be like to see what his baby sister has become at last.

“She’s a good kid,” Laurel tells him, then corrects herself when his smile falters. “Well, a young woman, really. She’s grown up so much, Ollie…”

She doesn’t point out that this is the second time he didn’t stick around to see it. It’d be a valid point, she knows, but honestly she can’t help thinking that this time it was for the best. Oliver is… well, he’s complicated, and complicated is the last thing Thea needs right now. Laurel knows that none of what happened is really his fault, but the sight of his face is a painful reminder of everything they’ve survived; Ollie’s like a throwback to the quake, an echo of Tommy, a shadow of everything Laurel wants to forget, everything they all want to, and maybe it’s not fair, maybe it’s cruel, but the simple fact is that it’s going to be much harder to stay on this trajectory of recovery with Ollie back in town.

It’s the same for Thea. In a way, it’s harder for her, because she loves him in a way that means more than Laurel’s own feelings; it’s a whole lot easier for Laurel to turn away from Ollie, to turn away from ‘them’, to say that it’s too hard, that it hurts too much, but Thea doesn’t have that choice. He’s her brother, the only family he has left with their mother in Iron Heights, and Thea can’t turn away from that.

They haven’t talked about him at all. Those nights at Verdant, knocking back free drinks, Laurel was careful to keep him out of the conversation as much as possible. They mentioned him in passing once or twice, usually when Laurel was a little more tipsy than she should have been or when Thea was tired and bitter and wanted someone to blame; his name came up for a second, turned the taste of liquor sour, and then vanished to leave a shadow over the rest of the night. It never helped, and it always hurt, and Laurel is slowly but surely coming to understand that that’s just Ollie. That’s who he is, what he does, and maybe it’s not his fault, but that doesn’t change the facts. Truth be told, his decision to leave town when he did was probably the best thing he could have done for them all.

“She hasn’t been to Iron Heights,” Ollie says, and it takes Laurel a moment or two to realise why that’s relevant.

“She’s angry,” she reminds him, a little too softly. “And upset. And confused. It’s a hell of a lot to take in, Ollie, your family drama. You can’t blame her for needing a little time to process it all.”

“It’s our _mother_ ,” Ollie reminds her, a hitch in his voice that sounds like guilt, like this isn’t really about Thea and her coping mechanisms at all. “Don’t you think she deserves—”

“Really?”

The word is like a bullet, cutting through his sentences like the Hoods cut through the mayor. It’s not exactly angry, not least of all because Laurel still can’t quite bring herself to feel that way, but it’s definitely forceful. She might not be able to feel the things she knows she should be, but she still feels enough to feel protective, to think of Thea, and she has no intention of letting Oliver cast his own guilt onto his sister’s shoulders.

“What?” he asks, like he has no idea what he’s said.

Laurel rolls her eyes. It’s so typical of him, not realising the hurt he’s pushing onto other people, not understanding the consequences of his own arrogance. Still, she knows him, and she’s just far enough removed that she can talk to him like an adult, have this conversation, protect Thea where she’s still too young and too angry to argue her own case.

“You’re really going to play that card?” she asks. “You, of all people, are coming down hard on Thea for not visiting your mother?”

“Well, she—”

“She’s angry,” Laurel says again. “And understandably so. But at least she didn’t skip town.”

That does it. Ollie opens his mouth to protest his innocence, to argue, but whatever point he might have made dies in his throat as the realisation spreads like sunlight across his face. She’s right, and he knows it, and the little victory kicks in her chest, just like the champagne but a little more pleasant. Maybe he’s grown up a bit more than she gives him credit for, she thinks, because for once in his over-privileged life he actually hangs his head.

“Look,” Laurel goes on, lowering her voice an octave or so. “Thea will come around, okay? I’m sure of it. She’s headstrong and angry, and heaven knows she’s as stubborn as you were at that age… but she’s not vindictive. She knows what’s important. She knows…”

But whatever closing argument her lawyer’s mind was cooking up dies unvoiced in her throat. She thinks back to the club, to those late nights cleaning up, to Thea shaking her head and saying _“just this once”_ and the inevitability when once turns to twice and beyond, when Laurel’s grinning through a mouthful of stuff that Thea’s not really old enough to serve her, when she smiles back and turns away from the emptying liquor shelf, when she lets her hand linger next to Laurel’s as the drink turns her head fuzzy and she thinks _this is good, this is nice_. No judgement, no reservation, just her and Thea and their mutual justified anger.

She sees it more clearly now. With Ollie in front of her, so like his sister and so different, it’s easier to look back and remember those moments with a new kind of clarity, not the anger and the haze that fuels them, not the shared sentiment and the bitterness turning sour shots sourer, but with hindsight and reality. She thinks about the look on Thea’s face as those nights drag on longer, the wry little smile as she hands over packets of peanuts and the way it fades into sobriety as she fixes her a drink. It was never empathy, Laurel realises a lifetime too late, wasn’t shared bitterness or mutual understanding; it was _sympathy_ , and as her stomach turns to acid like a hangover waiting to happen, she wonders why she’s only seeing it now.

“Knows what?” Ollie presses, and Laurel shakes herself free from the thoughts and the awful taste they bring up.

“More than you give her credit for,” she manages, and the confession takes more out of her than she’d ever admit in front of him. “More than… more than any of us do.”

Ollie chuckles, and he sounds so much like his sister, so light-but-guarded that Laurel has to turn away. It’s all the things she liked about those nights in Verdant, all the things she doesn’t want to think about now, everything that’s taken on a new meaning when the empathy is twisted into sympathy. She has to look away from him, has to shield herself from those piercing blue eyes, the eyes that know her so much better than his sister’s ever will; if Thea can see through her, can recognise the broken parts of her without Laurel even realising they’re on display, there’s no chance that her brother will miss it. For all his laziness when it comes to his studies, Laurel’s always been the kind of book he reads too easily.

She’s seen that look in his eyes before, resolve and frustration; he wants to fix everything, wants to make right all the terrible things that have happened to his family, because of his family. He wants to make Thea come around, wants to take away Laurel’s loss, his own loss, wants to dig his hands into all those open wounds and make them clean with the power of positive thinking. He’s the same old Ollie, and the way he sighs and moves in close is a painful reminder of everything they’ve lost, everything they can’t take back now. Remembering the way he looks at her, the fire in his eyes… it just makes her remember Tommy’s, softer and sweeter, cool water after Ollie’s tempered steel, everything she didn’t realise she needed.

It hurts, and she’s so afraid that the anger will come back, so afraid that she’ll lash out at him, that she’ll blame him again for all those things that aren’t his fault. He doesn’t deserve that any more than Thea deserves his big-brother self-righteousness, and she replaces the image in her head with one of a gun-barrel, of Hoods and threats and death.

“Hey.” Ollie’s voice is soft, as close to tender as he ever gets. “You okay?”

She shrugs, keeps her shoulders tight, keeps her eyes on the wall. “Nothing a few more glasses of champagne won’t cure.”

He makes another sound, a rumbling in his chest, then touches her shoulder. It’s compassion, yes, but worry too, and it tightens the sour knot in her stomach until it’s almost unbearable. “Careful with that,” he says, like he has any idea what he’s talking about. “You don’t want to end up like your old man.”

“I won’t,” she snaps, offended in a way that cuts a little too close to the bone. “You know me better than that.”

He doesn’t reply, but he lowers his hand, contact dropping away from her shoulder, like he’s afraid he’s pressed on a nerve. Laurel’s skin feels unnaturally warm in the place where his fingers were, where his touch set it alight, muscle memory coming to life all over again. She shivers, wills the chill to settle again, wills herself to grow cold, because the heat is too dangerous, and puts a few steps’ worth of distance between them.

“I forgot to thank you,” Ollie says after a moment, changing the subject in that awkward, sheepish way he has. “For keeping an eye on them while I was away. For making sure they were both safe.”

Laurel shakes her head. “They didn’t need it,” she tells him; she tries to smile, but maybe the whole held-at-gunpoint thing has her a little more shaken than she’d like to admit, because her lips are trembling too much. “You’ve always underestimated how strong the women in your life are.”

She doesn’t need to see his face to know that he’s looking at her with the same fire in his eyes that she still feels igniting the skin of her shoulder. “You’re right about that,” he says, very quietly.

“I’m right about a lot of things,” she sighs. “It’s just a shame you didn’t realise that when you had the chance.”

And there it is, just like that, the invitation he’s been waiting for. She’s still not ready for this, the giant question-mark hanging over both their heads, the messy complicated issue of ‘them’. She’s definitely not ready to deal with that, with what it means, or what it doesn’t mean, what it can’t mean, and all the reasons why it can’t. She’s not ready to talk about it, not ready to speak the words, to make them real, to go from thinking it and accepting it, from knowing and understanding to _saying_ it; she knows what needs to be done, knows how and why, knows every last detail, and she knows that he probably knows it too. He’s always been quick to bail out of a sinking ship, hasn’t he, and the irony of the metaphor cuts ever deeper the more she thinks about it. Still, though, it’s a long journey from knowing all those things to actually standing up straigth and seeing them through.

They’re both stupidly courageous, the two of them, and stupidly stubborn, and he’s no more likely to back down from an invitation than she is to back down from the look he gives her, a strained, anxious look that says, _‘Are you sure you want to do this now?’_ He probably thinks he’s being sensitive, compassionate, but she sees the subtext in those sentiments, the way he still feels like she needs protecting, like he needs to be the one protecting her. Well, she thinks, now is precisely the wrong moment for that kind of chauvinistic bullshit; she’s just faced four hooded lunatics and their goddamned gun barrels, and if she can get through that with nothing more than a few bruised knuckles, then she can sure as hell get through one lousy conversation with Starling’s resident resurrected playboy.

And maybe he sees a little of that resolve in her. Maybe he notices the way she straightens up, the way she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t answer that unvoiced question with a trembling lip and big wet eyes, doesn’t play the cards she used to when they were together. Maybe he notices all the ways she’s changed, all the ways their relationship has, because instead of floundering for more excuses to change the subject, he just nods and swallows, and takes a deep breath.

“Sorry I left.”

As apologies go, it’s a bad one, and not least of all because it’s aimed at the wrong person. Honestly, Laurel doesn’t give a damn what he does with his free time; she’s got her own life, her own circle of friends, and she sure as hell doesn’t need him breathing down her neck and making sure she’s okay. Maybe she did once, a long time ago, but those days drowned with her sister, broke apart like the overpriced yacht that killed her, and Laurel has learned the hard way that it’s dangerous to lean on other people, dangerous to need them.

After the _Gambit_ , she learned that lesson a dozen times. She learned it from her father when he started to drink, when he started putting his needs before anyone else’s. She learned it from her mother when she did the same thing, when she packed up and walked out on the people who still needed her. She learned it from her friends, her classmates and later colleagues, all the people who claimed to care about her but never knew what to say. She learned it again and again, from everyone she once thought she could trust, everyone she once thought she could lean on, thought she could _need_ , and the lesson etched itself under her skin like a tattoo, like a brand she can’t remove or forget.

She’s not the one Ollie should be apologising to. Whatever they did, whatever they had, it’s not important. Laurel is Laurel and she’ll still be Laurel if he’s not there; her life doesn’t hang on his. She doesn’t want his apologies, and she sure as hell doesn’t need them Moira needs them; Thea needs them. His mother, the woman he left to rot in that damned prison cell, and his sister, the young girl he left in charge of a night club she’s not even old enough to enjoy. Laurel thinks again of free drinks, of late-night conversations in the neon half-light, of the way Thea’s mouth went tight and thin when Laurel was too drunk or too stupid to keep from mentioning her brother’s name. She thinks of that one day in Iron Heights, apologies and the weight of his memory between them.

They’re the ones he should be apologising to. They’re the ones he let down, the ones he screwed over. Laurel’s just…

Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? She’s not sure what she is any more. She doesn’t know who she is, what she’s turning into, what she’s letting her losses make her. She doesn’t know who she is, but she knows who she’ll be by the end of this conversation. Nothing. No-one.

They can’t afford to be more than that to each other, not any more, not with so many debris scattered between them, fallout from the quake, from the _Gambit_ , from their relationship and all the hurt that went with it, from every terrible thing that ever happened to either one of them. Ollie’s death and Sara’s, the way he took her down with him but didn’t bring her back, the way the sight of his face that first day brought back all those old half-buried resentments, all the conflicted and complicated feelings she’d thought she’d left for dead along with Sara.

Sara, who wasn’t so lucky. Sara, who didn’t get to land on her feet, didn’t get a second chance, didn’t get nine lives. Sara, who had so much to live for but never got to live. Sara, and then Tommy, and it’s so hard to drive down the resentment now, so hard to stifle the feeling, the fury that rises up again now as she looks at him again, sees his face and wishes she could remember theirs.

It’s the same old story. First Sara, now Tommy, and who else is waiting around the corner? She can’t mourn them, either of them. She can’t think of the people she’s lost without seeing his face, without thinking of him and what he cost her. He took away everything she’d ever felt for Sara, took away her final moments with Tommy, took away every sacred thing she’d ever shared with either one of them. Everything she ever knew about her sister went up in smoke the day she learned about the _Gambit_ , the day she learned that they were sleeping together. And now again, it’s Tommy’s name but the feelings are the same. She’s looking at Oliver and thinking about Tommy, but she’s still remembering _Oliver_. It’s his arms she feels around her when she closes his eyes, his warmth that smothers her, his body that ignites in the pit of her belly. All she wants is a moment to think of Tommy, just him, but all she can see is Ollie.

“Believe me,” she says, feeling lost and lonely, “I get it.”

What she means is, _I wish I could leave as easily as you._

—

The rest of the conversation, such as it is, is unexpectedly painless.

In truth, Laurel supposes that shouldn’t surprise her. No matter how complicated they are, her and Ollie, they’ve always been pretty good at understanding each other, or at least understanding what’s important; even when they’re both unspeakably awful at the whole communication thing, when she’s full of idealism and he’s full of testosterone, when they’re clashing instead of connecting, when he’s busy stroking his own ego and she’s too wrapped up in her books to pay attention… even when they don’t _get_ each other, they still _understand_. They still know each other, on a fundamental and basic level. It’s the one thing they’ve always had, the one thing that’s always worked even when nothing else did, and even her dad could never quite deny that little piece of them. They see each other, the good and the bad, and when they look at each other, really and truly, things always seem to fall into place.

Things are no different now than they were back then, and that’s both the problem and the solution. It’s what brought them back together in the first place, the understanding that cuts through even the clashes; it drove her into his arms when they were both confused and desperate, drove him to seek her out in the first place. He should should have been encouraging his best friend, and she should have been thinking of her boyfriend; they both should have been thinking of Tommy, their Tommy, but instead they were thinking of each other, of all the ways they understood, all the ways they knew each other, all the things that were right between them even when they were so wrong. It’s their curse and their blessing, and it made things so messy then, so complicated and so terrible.

Right now, though, it makes things easy.

Hindsight is a beautiful gift, and it’s one they embrace together. A new kind of understanding, a different kind, and one that gives them both the strength to cut the ties that never should have been reforged. They understand the differences now, just like they understand each other, and at least this time the distance healed more than it hurt.

They don’t come together, not any more; they _collide_. They’re hard and fast, slamming into each other, burning each other to the ground, and it was cool when they were young, so exciting when she was idealistic and he was a playboy playing games, but now they’re both older and wiser, now that they’ve both been through so much, now they both have so much more to live for, and honestly it’s not fun any more. It’s still exciting, still thrilling, but it’s not healthy.

It’s not good for her, falling back on him every time anything happens, seeing his face wherever she goes, whatever she does, thinking of him when she thinks of Tommy, hearing his voice when she talks to Thea, resenting him when she visits Moira. And it’s not good for him either, coming back to her when there are so many places he should be instead. He should be with his family, with Thea who has worked her ass off to keep his stupid club going, with his mother who’s looking at a lifetime’s imprisonment at best, with the people who should mean everything to him. It’s not good that always end up here, together, talking about ‘them’, while the rest of the world burns around them. It’s not the way it should be, not the way it needs to be.

And so it’s not. So they agree, mutually and respectfully. They can’t go back to what they were, what they once meant to each other, can’t drain out the poison that’s bled into them. The world has changed all around them, and maybe it’s about time they changed too. They can’t move forward if they’re both trapped in the past, and they can’t look out at the people who need them, the people they love, when all they see is each other. It’s for the best, ending it here and now with a quick clean cut. They both know it, both understand, and their fleeting relapse ends with a hug and a maturity that neither of them could quite manage when they were together.

It’s the simplest conversation she’s had in what feels like years. _“We can’t go back,”_ she says, and so they don’t. It’s the only thing she needs to say, the only thing either of them do. It’s everything there is to know about them, summed up in four words, and it’s so simple, so effortless that it almost makes her cry.

 _We can’t go back,_ she thinks, and as she watches him turn and walk away, she wonders why she ever wanted to.

—


End file.
